Some sort of leather-faced, rat-like, second-story man? Alfred Hutton? I don't think so. And here is the PRACTICE, FENCING, NON-LETHAL sabre he designed. Goodness, Amos, but you must thing that I spend all of my time running people through and most certainly isn't the case!

I knew there was SOME explanation as to how you were making ends meet. I suppose you have a tight private connection with some little sawed-off gimpy-eyed, leather-faced, twist-nosed lowlife second-story man who will suddenly deliver this target asset to you for fencing, and probably a little black book of dozens of highly qualified extraordinarily wealthy marks who won't ask too many questions to sell it to...

It is a fair and pleasant day here in Idaho, with the skies smiling bluely and the sun dappling the greening land; to the West, the GrEat Pacific rolls gently in from the far Orient, bringing faint traces of jasmine, oolong, and the occasional used humdrum. Soft breezes are just now playing along the mountain slopes to the West, where the barren wastes of Oregon lie hidden on the far slope ready to ensnare any woebegone traveler who is foolish enough to want to leave this paradoxical countryside.

It is a fair and pleasant day here in California, with the skies smiling bluely and the sun dappling the greening land; to the West, the Grat Pacific rolls gently in from the far Orient, bringing faint traces of jasmine, oolong, and the occasional used condom. Soft breezes are just now playing along the mountain slopes to the East, where the barren wastes of Arizona lie hidden on the far slope ready to ensnare any woebegone traveler who is foolish enough to want to leave this paradaisical countryside.

That could be legit, Rapparee. It's exactly what I would've written to them Corinthian bozos if I had been Paul. The New Testament is not bad, but I think the Old Testament really gets a bum rap these days even though there is a lotta good stuff in it. Just think what Joshua coulda done at Jericho if he'd had a few Tommy guns fer the troops!

Tell Chongo fer me I think he's right and it's not my fault--turns out I had an ovberheated condensor in my strategic semantic differential tracking device whoich pointed me 37.23 degrees off from the correct universe of origin.

Jimmy, God is laughing at you. He thinks you look silly with mascara running down your cheeks. He also wants you to know that the sauna/spa resort you invested in for the "poor" is not sanctified. Get used to the heat---it will serve you well in the future.

You are a sorry goddamn case, Amos. It don't take a whole lotta smarts to figger out that whoever composes the Jimmy Lee Staggers posts, it is not LH. The fragmentation you are wearin' yerself out imaginin' on his behalf don't exist, chump. Someone else is responsible for inflictin' Jimmy Lee Staggers on a sufferin' world. My guess is that that someone else hales from Idaho, a place where "frag" usually refers to blowin' someone away, but that's another subject altogether.

You tell 'em, Jimmy. It so happens that I am among those sufferin' poor you mention, seein' as how I am behind on the rent and runnin' out of money to satisfy my usual needs in terms of cigars and whiskey. Yup, the cupboard is startin' to look pretty bare. So when all them repentant sinners who fear the fires of perdition start pourin' in the funds to you, Jimmy, I trust you will direct some of them funds my way ASAP. I only need a few thousand a month, cos my needs are small and modest, me bein' a humble and God-fearin' primate.

Send the money to Box 199 at the main central downtown post office in Chicago or drop it off in a plain paper bag at the alley back of Duffy's Bar, 7 PM on Sundays. I'll be there.

Y'all are on the Hell-bound train! Y'all will be dumped in a lake of fire, with fire coming out of every opening in your bodies as the fires of your sins eat you from within like battery acid. You will have an itch, a terrible, burning itch, in places where you can't reach to scratch. Yes, and giant fiends with the wings of bats, fiends who breathe fire and brimstone, will torture you in unspeakable ways BECAUSE YOU HAVE TURNED FROM THE LIGHT AND GOODNESS TO THE WAYS OF SATAN AND ALL HIS WORKS AND POMPS!! But there is still hope, yes, as long as you exist you have Hope. But you must give over all your evil sinful tricks and repent. Yes, I say REPENT! Give all you have to the poor so that you are no longer tempted and hindered by the Things of This World! Remember what Paul says in Corinthians 3! Sell all you have and send to the Rev. Jimmy Lee Staggers Ministries and we will see that it is distributed to the neediest among us.

Penny, old duck, I really rathah think you should stick to throwing your bloomers in the general direction of every half-balked, self-styled poet in the West End, and leave the psychobabble to those who speak it fluently. Like Liebenscheiss, for example. Now, there's a notion. Let's have one of my imaginary characters psychoanalyze one of Little Hawk's imaginary characters-- a brilliant display of hot air chasing hot air in order to measure hot air..

Amos, my dear, you must realize that once a fictional character is created, whether in literature, in film, or in any other medium, that character must remain consistently in character in order to be credible. This was the case with Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. It is the case with that rough hewn Chicago chimpanzee adventurer Chongo too. It has to be, don't you see? They simply are who they are, and that is all there is to it. If Little Hawk were to deviate from portraying his characters AS who they are, they would be justified in abandoning both him and this forum, and you would then have to find something else to object to.

Bummer afternoon. Eye doctor dilated my eyes, and it always takes a long time to wear off. I'm squinting at the screen for a few minutes to tell you. They're going to do it tomorrow again because I have more tests. Seems my right eye is showing some signs of a circulation problem. Darn. At least the treatment would be eye drops, not a whole body impact drug.

Getting older is the pits. But as my friend Dean says, it beats the alternative!

You would hear a lot more of what other people say, bub, if you was just a bit more inclined to listen, instead of just concentratin' all yer attention on the next brilliant thing you are about to say. You gotta listen, see? Otherwise you ain't never gonna hear nothin' in this world but the sound of yer own voice echoin' in the hollow space of yer own ego. That was Bugsy Malone's problem. He didn't listen to nothin' but the sound of his own voice. That was Dutch Schulz's problem too. And you see how they ended up...layin' on a cold slab.

The author of The Seven Mysteries of Liferecites an incident of a baby giraffe separated just after birth from its mother and kept separate and alone until it was a teenager.

No mirrors and no other giraffes.

When they were then re-united the young giraffe could not imagine that such a strange looking animal as the mother giraffe could have anything to do with him and rejected all overtures from her, persuaded it was an absolutely bizarre crittur.

Reminds me of the old farmer who finally saw one in a traveling circus and declared "They're jest ain't no such animaL".

If he did that, a ginormous Black Hole would appear and it would swallow up the whole friggin' universe.

- Chongo

p.s. Amos, I have wrote down yer advice to me and filed it under section H: "Take this out and look at it whenever I need a good laugh or two and can't find anything in the Sunday comics that'll do the job better."

I am your Creator. You turned out sort of okay. QED: I must be much more okay than you are.

Hey, I learned logic and stuff from Franciscans, and they can one-up the Jesuits any day. Of course, I already knew all that stuff but the time had not yet arrived for me to announce that I am the Creator, the Thinker-Upper, of everything.

You half-pint fleabitten overgrown throwrug, whyncha take those dental plates out and show folks your real smile. It'll scare them into the next county. No winks from chicks for you, you pan-species panderer! Besides, you'd have ta stand down wind or they'd run for the fallout shelter. Bad idea. Why don't you human up and take care of your mother and sister, instead, cheapskate!! Or doesn't that no-good shyster Little Hawk pay you any royalties?

I am picturin' Amos and LH havin' it out mano-a-mano, rollin' around on the ground in the dirt, yellin' and screechin' and pullin' hair, scratchin' and gougin' and kickin', fists wavin' in the air, one hand shoved inta the other guy's open mouth just like Dagwood and Herb used ta do in the old Blondie comic strip...

And Rapaire on the microphone wildly callin' the play-by-play while I sell hot chestnuts to the cheerin' spectators and wink at the girls...